


The Window

by ellacj



Series: 52 Weeks of Swan Queen [36]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark Emma, F/F, season five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief."</p><p>-Aeschylus</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Window

It’s nearly three in the morning when Regina hears it.

It’s just the tiniest tapping at the window, but it pulls her from her sleep and has her glancing around searching for the source of the noise. Her eyes widen when she sees what’s outside her window.

Emma holds her eyes for just an instant before she’s gone, leading Regina to wonder if she’d even seen her at all. It wasn’t the Emma Regina knew and loved, the one with the sun in her eyes and the world in her smile. This version Emma has powder-white hair pulled back into a bun tight enough to pull at pale skin. Her green eyes, once so full of warmth, are ice cold, like the emeralds they long to be.

Something inside Regina tells her that Emma wasn’t there for the split second she saw her. No, she’s got a feeling that Emma sat there for hours, just watching. Waiting, perhaps, though for what she can’t be sure.

Regina goes to the window and pushes it open enough to poke her head outside. “Emma?” she murmurs.

There’s no reply for a long time, but after a minute there’s a movement in the tree outside Regina’s window and Emma’s form slowly materializes out of nothing. “Hi,” she says so quietly Regina barely hears.

“What are you doing here? We’ve been looking for you for days!”

“I missed watching you sleep.”

Regina sighs. “You can’t just lurk. What if Henry saw you?”

“I’m careful. He never sees me.”

“You mean you’ve done this before?”

Emma doesn’t reply. She ducks her head away from Regina’s eyes and, for just a moment, she looks like herself again. But when she looks up her eyes are sharp and cold again and she looks all too like the Dark One the dagger claims she is.

“Come inside.” Regina pushes the window open as far as it will go and retreats further into the room, watching intently as Emma hesitates for just a second before inching forward on the branch to swing a leg over the windowsill and pull herself into the room.

Regina scans her up and down, taking in the copious amounts of black leather clinging to every curve of Emma’s body. Despite the darkness it indicates, she can’t help but appreciate the view. She’s only human, after all.

“Are you upset?” Emma murmurs.

“Of course I’m upset. How could I not be? I’ve been searching for you, worrying about you nonstop since you absorbed that damn curse, and here you’ve been lurking outside my bedroom window!”

“Regina, I-”

“Save it.” Regina shakes her head. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“You can’t tell anyone I was here.”

“Why not? They’ve all been so worried about you.”

“I know, but I’m dangerous, Regina. Sometimes I can’t control it. I just have this… this urge to kill. I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Regina searches Emma’s eyes, but they remain as distant and unreadable as ever. “I won’t let that happen.”

“Neither will I.” Emma shifts her weight from foot to foot. “That’s why I have to stay away.”

Slowly, Regina steps forward, arms outstretched to pull Emma into an embrace. It’s been too long since she’s kissed those lips, felt those strong arms around her, whispered those three words that suddenly meant so much more when Emma was there.

But Emma doesn’t move to meet her. Regina’s barely an inch away from touching her hand when she whips it away, biting down on her bottom lip as hard as she can. “I can’t touch you,” she hisses as though it pains her to say it. And, looking at her like this, Regina thinks it just might.

“Why?”

“Because it’s the people I love that bring it out in me. If you touch me…” she shucks in a sharp breath. “I don’t want to take that risk.”

Regina falls silent. They stay there like that, Regina’s hands still reaching toward Emma, Emma’s entire body angled away and her face stretched into a pained expression, neither of them moving for several beats of their hearts. “Perhaps you should go,” Regina says finally.

“Yeah. Maybe I should.” Emma turns back toward the window. “I love you,” she says without turning around.

“I love you, too.”

Emma climbs out the window and steadies herself on the branch of the tree, clinging tightly to the bark until she makes her way to grip the trunk.

“Emma?” Regina calls after her.

Emma turns to face her with eyebrows raised.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

With a small, crooked smile, Emma nods once before vanishing in a cloud of black smoke.

Regina pulls the window shut and retreats back into her room with arms wrapped around her waist. There’s a battle raging inside her; Emma’s alive, Emma’s all right, Emma’s a danger to all those who love her. So does she tell? Or does she keep Emma her own secret for now, her private visitor in the middle of the night?

Snow and Charming may never forgive her if they find out she saw Emma and didn’t tell them. Henry might not either, for that matter. And yet, if they find her, she could hurt them. She could kill them. She sighs. It’s too much to handle at three in the morning, so she lies back down in her bed and pulls the covers up around her shoulders. For now, she’ll fight for sleep.

The rest she can figure out tomorrow.


End file.
